The words “erotic art” mean different things to different people. Ideas of just what that entails might range from ancient Greek statues of the sex goddess Aphrodite to Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine du monde to the semi-abstract paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe. The category is quite pliable and open to creative interpretation, a fact that curator and artist Martha Edelheit has put to good use at the new exhibition Erotic City, opening at Eric Firestone Gallery in New York.
The show, which incudes more than 60 pieces ranging from paintings to photos, sculpture and other media, is wide-ranging and impressive, spanning decades of creativity. They have all been selected for their sensual pleasures, which may or may not exactly include forms of gratification that are explicitly sexual. In fact, the question of just what makes up the category of erotic art is an open and slippery question, one that Erotic City raises but does not necessarily want to answer, at least in so many words.
